Ezra 5:3-13

3At that time Tattenai, the governor of the province on the west side of the [Euphrates] River, and Shethar-bozenai and their colleagues came to them and said, “Who issued you a decree and authorized you to rebuild this temple and to restore this wall (shrine)?”

4Then, accordingly, we told them the names of the men who were reconstructing this building.

5But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, so they [Tattenai and the others] did not stop them until a report could come before Darius, and then an answer was returned by letter concerning it.

6This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, governor of the province west of the [Euphrates] River, and Shethar-bozenai and his associates, the officials who were west of the River, sent to Darius the king.

7They sent a report to him in which it was written: “To Darius the king, all peace.

8Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones, with beams laid in the walls; and this work goes on with diligence and care and is succeeding in their hands.

9Then we asked those elders, ‘Who issued you a decree to rebuild this temple and to finish this structure?’

10We also asked them their names so that we might notify you, and so that we might record the names of the men in charge.

11They replied, ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are rebuilding the temple which was erected many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.

12But because our fathers provoked the God of heaven to wrath, He handed them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon.

13But in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, [the same] King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.